Currently business, insurance companies, doctors and governments are collecting, recording and collating information about people from the time they are born to the time they die. Consequently, it has been said that we are living in the age of information. Many people are concerned that they are loosing their privacy in the information age. In order to alleviate certain invasion of privacy fears Congress has enacted and the President has signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Pub. L. 104-191.
HIPAA requires that Federal agencies operating health plans or providing health care, State Medicaid agencies, private health plans, health care providers, and health care clearinghouses must assure their customers (for example, patients, insured individuals, providers, and health plans) that the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of protected health information they collect, maintain, use, or transmit is protected. The confidentiality of health information is threatened not only by the risk of improper access to stored information, but also by the risk of interception during electronic transmission of the information.
Before the enactment of HIPAA, a given unit of a hospital monitored a number of patients by listing the patient's name, room number, physician, and other patient information on a large board. The board usually was centrally located and easily viewed.
Thus, according to HIPPA a board may not be used in its current manner.